airline safety

Cathay Pacific safety record

No one has been killed in an accident on a Cathay Pacific flight since 1967, and no one in an accident or attack since 1972. On airlines like Cathay Pacific, the chance of a passenger dying in an accident is about 1 in 80 million per flight.

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No one on board has died in an accident since 1967
Chance of dying in an accident, per flight1 in 80 million

For airlines based in Hong Kong and the other countries in the same safety group, 2018–2022 (MIT study).

Put another way: if you took a flight every single day, you would, on average, fly for about 219,000 years before a fatal accident happened to you.

the record

No fatal accident since 1967

The last time anyone was killed on a Cathay Pacific flight in an accident or attack was June 1972, when a bomb hidden in a suitcase exploded on flight 700Z over what was then South Vietnam, killing all 81 people on board. That was a criminal act, not an accident; a suspect was tried in Thailand and acquitted. Cathay has not lost an aircraft since.

Its last fatal accident was in November 1967, when a Convair 880 abandoned its take-off at Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport after heavy vibration and ran off the end of the runway into the harbour; one of the 127 people on board was killed. Its earliest years include the 1948 hijacking of the Miss Macao flying boat, which Cathay flew for a subsidiary, and a DC-4 shot down by Chinese military aircraft near Hainan in 1954.

since 1970

Every fatal accident, on one line

Solid dots are its own flights; hollow ones were flown by a partner or subsidiary under its name; grey rings are hijackings and attacks. Deaths that investigators don't class as accidents (such as trespassers) aren't shown.

197019801990200020102020
Its own flights Hijackings and attacks
  1. Jun 1972 CX700Z · Convair 880 · Near Pleiku, South VietnamA bomb in a suitcase exploded in cruise, killing all on board. A suspect was tried in Thailand and acquitted.
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at a glance

Cathay Pacific in numbers

Founded
1946
Country
Hong Kong
Alliance
Oneworld
Main hubs
Hong Kong
Fleet
180 as of Dec 2025
IATA safety audit (IOSA)
Registered
the fleet

What Cathay Pacific flies

Tap a plane for its own safety record.

Boeing 777 See its safety record Airbus A350 See its safety record Airbus A330 See its safety record Airbus A320 family See its safety record
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An iPhone Lock Screen showing the FlyBud Live Activity: Barcelona to Istanbul, gate B23, boarding, with the same flight in the Dynamic Island at the top of the screen.

Cathay Pacific safety questions

How safe is Cathay Pacific?

No one has been killed in an accident on a Cathay Pacific flight since 1967, and no one in an accident or attack since 1972. On airlines like Cathay Pacific, the chance of a passenger dying in an accident is about 1 in 80 million per flight. Every fact on this page is sourced — the list is at the bottom.

What is Cathay Pacific's safety rating?

There is no single official safety rating for airlines; the scores some websites publish are their own formulas. What can be checked is the record: no one killed in an accident or attack on board since 1972, and no aircraft lost since. It is a member of IATA, the airlines' trade body, which requires its members to pass IATA's operational safety audit (IOSA).

Has Cathay Pacific ever crashed?

Its last fatal accident was in 1967, when a Convair 880 abandoned its take-off at Kai Tak and ran off the end of the runway into the harbour; one person was killed. In 1972 a bomb destroyed flight 700Z over Vietnam. It has not lost an aircraft since.

sources

Where these facts come from

Every fact on this page comes from official accident reports, the airline's own figures or the published accident record.

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